


This Side

by phrenitis



Category: Fringe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-20
Updated: 2010-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenitis/pseuds/phrenitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s quaint, this side of the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Side

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Season Three, _Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?_

_“I say across the waves of the air to you:  
today once more  
I will try to be non-violent  
one more day  
this morning, waking the world away  
in the violent day.”  
\-- Muriel Rukeyser, ‘Waking This Morning’_

==

There are a few tense moments, times where lies and facts fill her head and it takes a second to spin the right story. But she’s really _really_ good, and failure means a lot more than her life, so those incidents are few.

Rachel and Ella prove the most difficult – not to convince, they’re utterly clueless, but they have so many _stories_. She hunts down photo albums, letters, videos – pieces together a past that is rich with years and emotion.

 _Aunt ‘Liv_ , Ella says. And sometimes, when it’s late and thrown into an offhand comment – _so can I watch TV now? I brushed my teeth, Aunt ‘Liv._ – it hits her unexpectedly, the loss.

Only Peter questions, but it’s a curiosity really. She watches him watch her, knows her cover is solid, the tiny discrepancies always vaguely explainable. And if she encourages his affection, it’s only to continue the cover; it’s only to bring him close enough that the occasional rough edge starts to get a bit blurry.

==

The case runs long, a few endless days of searching through woods, and Walter puttering around in the lab. It’s not exactly on her mission list, but she can’t really do anything but be bothered about it at this point.

When they get to the bottom of the mess – an arrest, some odd glue (or goo, she’s never really sure what Walter’s saying), and one more telepath on the run – she feels fierce satisfaction at a mostly closed case, and it gives her pause.

“Nice job, Olivia,” Peter says, brushes a kiss to her temple as he passes.

==

It’s quaint, this side of the universe. It’s also destructive and cruel, deceptive and evil – what she’s been told will definitely prove true enough one day – but there is a charm to this side that reminds her of simple things, a slower history.

They dawdle over coffee, sit in traffic, drink at the bar, watch TV from the couch, and it’s almost _boring_ having this much time to think, to wait. She feels lazy most days, practically vibrates with excitement and energy when there’s even a hint of a case.

Sometimes, when she’s thinking, she worries it’s too easy with Peter, the way they’ve fallen together. The other Olivia has the backstory, but here she has the relationship, and the territory is new for both of them. There aren’t really rules she needs to follow, and it leaves her unsettled, writing this story with him.

==

She remembers Frank suddenly, violently, a few months on this side. It’s over something incredibly mundane, fighting with the coffee pot of all things. And it shocks her, this investment she’s made – so deep a cover, so great a mission, that this universe is slowly, quietly, becoming her only universe.

She goes to the firing range, frustration high as she fudges her aim again and again, the sound of casings hitting the floor in fast, metallic succession as she forces herself to remember the facts, the faces, the stories she shares with Frank, Charlie, Lincoln…

==

“Go to sleep,” he says in a quiet mumble, arm warm and heavy across her stomach.

But she can’t, she can’t even _try_ , and she stares at the ceiling, at the shifting shadows, and listens to his slow, soft breaths.

 _I did this to throw Peter off track_ , she thinks. The lack of conviction makes her ill.

She is still awake when the sun finally starts to rise.

 

 _-Fin_


End file.
